In much of my recent work — books and articles — I have addressed the issue of antisemitism in the contemporary world. That the beast is once again slouching, not only towards Bethlehem as in the Yeats poem, but towards Oslo, Paris, London, Stockholm, Malmo, Copenhagen, Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, Washington, Toronto, Sydney, Caracas, Brussels, Amsterdam, and many other cities and regions around the globe, should come as no surprise. From biblical times to the present moment, in their own homeland or “scattered among the peoples,” Jews have never been safe. This is precisely what distinguishes the Jewish people from the rest of humanity, the specific nature of their “chosenness.” Wherever they may find themselves they are always at risk, whether actively or potentially, targeted for slander, exclusion, or extinction.

In developing this argument in such books as The Big Lie (2007) and Hear, O Israel! (2009), I have been condemned by a number of my critics, who accuse me of exaggeration, self-pity, or a sort of obsolescence, as if my gaze were fixed on the past at the expense of a more amenable or complex present. The fact that many of these detractors are themselves Jewish is only to be expected, for Jews have a long history of wilfully ignoring the signs and rejecting the self-evident. It is not only the JINOs (Jews in Name Only), the “non-Jewish Jews” flagged by Isaac Deutscher, or the apikorsim (“wicked sons” of Jewish public life) enamored of their enemies who are blind to the historical fatwa against them. It is also those whom I refer to as the “good Jews” and whom author and Sun Media columnist Ezra Levant calls the “official Jews” — that is, a significant number of Jewish communicants, as well as their secular counterparts — who refuse to read the writing on the wall even when it is in their own language, inscribed in block letters, and blazoned on every street corner.

These Jewish critics — I have in mind people like Richard Just, editor of The New Republic, éminence grise Clifford Orwin of the Hoover Institution, and Canadian poet Harold Heft, among others who share their inveterate myopia — assailed my analysis as, variously, hyper-inflated, unfair to Islam, scare-mongering, one-dimensional, and so on, as if I refused to align my perspective with the mores of the enlightened and democratic West.

But the enlightened and democratic West is no longer what it very intermittently was — or rather, it is certainly not what it presents itself as being. The legacy media, academia, the political class, and an alarming proportion of the public have made common cause with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish campaign of the growing Islamic hegemony in the realms of ideology and practice. This is especially true of Europe whose Jewish population is increasingly under threat. As French philosopher Guy Milliere observes in his new manuscript Dissident: Why Europe Is Dead and What It Means for America and the World (not yet published), “Almost everywhere in Europe, it is now dangerous for a practicing Jew to wear a yarmulke,” a development that he regards as a visible and repellant symptom “of a wider and more disquieting decay.” There is no doubt, he continues, “that there is something rotten in today’s Europe.”

Millier’s France, the land of liberty, equality, and fraternity — whose 600,000 Jews are outnumbered by approximately ten times as many Muslims — is a case in point. A French Jew has circulated an email detailing anti-Jewish acts of terror and vandalism in French society rarely reported in the media: “In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil — all recently. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words ‘Dirty Jew’ were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days. Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming ‘Jews to the gas chambers’ and ‘Death to the Jews.’ A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher’s shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse; a Jewish couple in their 20′s were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne…. [A] Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles. This was just in the past week.” We recall that it was France TV-2 that marketed the al-Dura hoax. Its Jerusalem bureau chief Charles Enderlin, profoundly implicated in furthering the scandal, received the Prix Gondecourt for his self-serving and dissembling screed Un Enfant est Mort (A Child is Dead). Agence France-Presse is little better, taking every opportunity to misrepresent and vilify Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, as indeed has French president Nicolas Sarkozy who, inadvertently speaking into an open mic, famously branded Netanyahu a “liar.”

France may be leading the way but antisemitic incidents and/or anti-Israeli sentiment are on the rise in Italy, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, the UK, Sweden, Holland, Poland, and, of course, Norway. The hour of the European beast, to paraphrase Yeats, has come round once again.

It would be a serious mistake, however, to assume that America is exempt from the phenomenon. The “Representing the People” website, which is promoting a “Holocaust II” program, should not be dismissed as a fringe insanity. It is a symptom of the plague that is spreading. “REMOVE ONE JEW A DAY,” it solicits in caps. “If every American would remove only one Jew from the face of the earth, the entire problem would be solved. Can we count on you?” On the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, vandals set cars aflame and painted Nazi graffiti in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. As a recent survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) indicates, antisemitic attitudes now hover at 15% of the population and climbing. (Other polls suggest that support for Israel is rising, but this does not impact a hardcore sediment of anti-Jewish feeling.) And why is it, asks Ashley Rindsberg in The Jerusalem Post, that so vindictive and calumnious a book as Gilad Atzmon’s anti-Jewish excretion The Wandering Who? is openly sold on Amazon and Barnes & Noble when “a book of equivalent hatred (for any other group)” would surely be proscribed or quickly removed from the shelves?

It is no secret that antisemitism tends to flourish in times of political instability and economic tribulation, as at the present historical juncture when people ignorantly seek a scapegoat on which to project their confusion and resentment. But the truth is that it remains always latent even in halcyon periods. The sense of security that Jews have urgently sought and too often take for granted is a psychological delusion that works against an indispensable vigilance, a temptation that weakens the sine qua non of self-preservation. Jews who believe that assimilation provides asylum from the world’s “longest hatred” — no less, for that matter, than those Israelis who believe that accommodation with the Islamic adversary will lead to lasting peace — are living in a fool’s paradise.

In fact, as French-Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has persuasively argued inThe Imaginary Jew, it is precisely the urge to assimilation that much of the Gentile world holds against Jews, even those whose “will to integration” leads them to become antisemites themselves. Assimilation is an example of “historical irony attaining a tragic perfection,” for it was the very “will to integration that was really the crime.” The effort to melt into the mainstream, the desire for respectability and approval, is nothing less, according to Finkielkraut, than “a bad bargain with emancipation” which culminates one way or another in disdain, hatred, ostracism — or worse.

This is the message of the Book of Esther (and its associated Purim festival), which cautions Jews that the attempt to blend in is always idle, that even a place at court is no safeguard against antisemitic malice and that Jewish identity, however inscrutable or contested, cannot be forsworn. This is true of today’s “court Jews” as well, that cabal of journalists, editors, professors, authors, pundits, and pamphleteers who fulminate against their own while maintaining their coveted status in the corridors of preference. One recalls how the philosopher Moses Hess, formerly a passionate assimilationist, was shocked into reality by the Damascus riots of 1840 and became what we might call a proto-Zionist.

Similarly, Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement and author of the epochal The Jewish State (1896), was himself a staunch assimilationist until he visited France and saw with his own eyes the swollen cloud of mindless and deep-seated hatreds let loose by the Dreyfus trial. The conclusion he came to, however painful and against the grain, changed the course of his people’s history and cannot be controverted by the dejudaicized Jew who still wishes to preserve his sense of reality and ultimately to survive. Today there can be no question that, in the words of legal commentator Stephen Kruger, “The lowest common denominator of countries large and small is Jew-hatred.”

American Jews, who think they are safe, should read the report, first issued as a Faculty Working Paper, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The report accuses Israel of being a torture state, of not being a genuine democracy, and of not being a reliable partner of the U.S. But their salvos are not directed solely against Israel. They then proceed to abuse influential American Jews like Paul Wolfowitz, David Wurmser, and Douglas Feith for orchestrating the American involvement in Iraq and purport to show how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) “manipulates the media” and “polices academia.”

What is most disturbing is that this mendacious and bigoted report, which has since resurfaced in book form as The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, has the authority of a great American university behind it and, equally distressing, is only one of such numerous propaganda documents to come from heretofore unimpeachable sources or presumable experts. The most recent of such venomous screeds, as we have seen, is Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who? which reinforces the canard of Holocaust denial, justifies the libels of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and effectively blames Jews for all the world’s ills. That Atzmon is himself a Jew places him squarely in the ranks of the apikorsim, a traitor both to himself and to his people, one of those “value-added Jews,” as Nidra Poller calls them. “I no longer felt any attachment to the Jewish causes, Israel or the Jewish people,” he confesses; far better to play the saxophone, to be reassured that he “might possess musical talent,” and “to draw closer to the Arab sound” as he proceeds to defame Israel and Jews.

His type proliferates, as do instances of complicity. In November of this year, the Jewish antisemite, backer of the Iranian ayatollahs, and conspiracy theorist Richard Falk, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, spoke before the human rights center at my alma mater, McGill University in Montreal. To characterize this event as a “disgrace,” as some observers have done, is a reverberating understatement. It is a veritable obscenity. Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, gets it right: “someone who consistently contorts reality to fit a preconceived agenda — one that always ends up excusing the preachers of hate and the perpetrators of terror — has no place in an institution of learning premised on the principles of rational and empirical inquiry.” And, it should go without saying, has no place in the Jewish community either.

It is time for Jews to wake up and smell the viscid stench of bigotry and hatred that has begun to fill the air. What David Hume said about slavery in Essays moral, political, and literary is also true of murderous intentions, namely, that evil “has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself by a thousand shapes, in order to be received.” Before you know it, you are in chains. Only, as noted above, in the current moment the signs are increasingly conspicuous. The averted gaze and the serene assumption that “it can’t happen here” leave a people unprepared in the face of social depravity and political infamy. There is no longer any excuse for obliviousness. Nor is there any warrant for disowning, condescending to, or pillorying the messengers who bring premonitory tidings. Worse, there can be no forgiveness for partnering with antisemitic and anti-Zionist mustalids, as did the Jewish Studies Program at the University of California at Davis, inviting Gilbert Achcar, a defender of the Nazi collaborator Haj Amin al-Hussein, the notorious Mufti of Jerusalem, to “grace” the podium.

Whether in Israel or the Diaspora, Jews must recognize that the winds have shifted once again, that appeasement is a failed strategy, that pandering to the haters or joining their serried columns will not save them in the long run, that assimilation is no ironclad guarantee against the depredations of the morally benighted, that pretending otherwise and loitering in a state of occulted nonchalance and smug indifference is nothing but the harbinger of tragedy, and that awareness, courage, and the readiness to defend against assault in whatever way that may be called for have become necessary. Jews must shed their complacency and take the initiative, establish pro-active organizations willing to vigorously support their cause, cease funding universities where anti-Jewish groups, a leftist professoriate, and compliant administrators multiply, acknowledge that “interfaith dialogue” with Islamic clerics is a tactical maneuver on the part of a determined antagonist, know who their real allies are and welcome their advocacy, vote intelligently in elections rather than fall back on slogans and abstractions that play to their inflated sense of “social justice,” understand that as it goes with Israel, so it will go with them — in brief, stop arming the enemy. For the lesson of the Jewish saga across the killing fields of history is that what has happened before can happen again. And today we are witnessing both the resurgence of an old and barbarous malignity and a growing cohort of Jewish quislings and historical illiterates.

As Ethel Wilson writes in her story “We Have to Sit Opposite,” on one level about a train journey from Austria to Germany in the 1930s, but with allegorical implications pointing to a somnolent era that had closed its eyes to the advancing dangers of the time: “Many people slept until they reached Munich. Then they all began to wake up.” The trouble was, they had overslept.

Advocate Individual Rights. Only that doctrine allows us all to live together so long as we do not initiate or threaten to initiate force against another. Trying to protect one group or another without protecting all individuals is a failed strategy and perpetuates the “us vs. them” mentality.

The fundamental problem with advocating individual rights is that Islamic societies (the source of most of Europe’s immigration) advocate the tribe over the rights of the individual. There is no compatibility here. To martyr oneself for the tribe is the highest honor. We can argue about other Islamic societal traits but this is the core philosophical difference that must be overcome.

Advocating individual rights requires an enlightened self-interest that is fundamentally alien to most Islamic countries. They belong to the family, to the tribe, and to the country’s leaders. They do not advocate for themselves.

As such, if the tribe is fighting a battle against another, it does no good to argue alternative views. It does no good to suggest that there are ways to compromise. This is a culture of strong leaders who hold their communities together with hatred of someone or something.

So what can we do? We can identify these leaders and shame them. Where shame doesn’t work, a sniper or a long range drone will serve just as well. And where the latter isn’t possible, the only alternative left is all-out war. It disgusts me to say this, but some will understand nothing less. Our reluctance to engage this way is taken as a sign of weakness and exploited.

Ultimately a warrior mindset will bear more fruit in negotiations with these people than the peace and love mindset that the left would have us believe.

I was raised in Britain where in the higher classes of society Jews were never felt to be quite “pukka”. But then I, a Goyim, was definitely not “pukka” either. My family was lower in the social strata. We lived in an area of London where many Jews also lived and many houses had a mezuzah on the door. I went to high school with many Jewish kids. They were just kids who were Jews. Some were friends, some weren’t. Most people that I knew didn’t have a special feeling for or against Jews. They were just people who had their own religion and their own customs plus some phenomenon called “the Jewish mother.” With Jews that I knew I never got the feeling that I was a Shkutzim. During high school I worked in a butcher shop that happened to be Jewish and sold Kosher and non-Kosher meat. I understood Kosher and knew that it meant there were some tasks they wouldn’t ask me to do.

Looking back on that time I think that Jewish community was pretty comfortable partly because we non-Jews didn’t seem to feel threatened by the Jews we rubbed up against every day. At least that was my experience as a kid. If I were to go back to that area today I think the Jews there would be a lot less comfortable in today’s Britain.

Anti-semitism in Western countries is a permanent feature but its intensity is a by product of the culture of the day. It will rise and fall according to changes in that culture. I don’t think there is much that Jews can do about that. When a culture is in a generous principled phase then anti-semitism will be less evident. When a culture is in a mean, distrustful, divisive and unhappy phase then antisemitism will rise, as it is rising now.

What to do about it? Western society needs to have more natural decency than it does now rather than the misguided attempts to manufacture a type of decency that come from dopey Human Rights Commissions. But natural decency as a feature of society seems to be inversely correlated with its degree of “progressiveness”. Scratch an anti-semite these days and you often find a lefty. As you say in this article, Jews need to have better cultural antennae and I think they need to make sure they always have one or two safe harbours just in case things get really bad. For example a Jewish couple that I knew who escaped from Nazi Germany always made sure they had enough liquid assets to survive on for one year. They figured that wherever they washed up they could re-establish themselves over a twelve month period. It worked for them in Peru and in the U.S. Having a definite plan of reaction to anti-semitism seems like a good idea.

When will American Jewry see that the Leftist controlled media, academia, and political leaders are aiding and abetting the Jihadists and the anti-Semites???
The same Left that is blatantly anti-Christian.

The same Christians, both Evangelical and Conservative secular, who are the staunchest supporters of Israel and the Jewish people in America.

American Jews, you may feel safer, or more comfortable, amongst the atheists and pagans of the Left, than with Christians, and I recognize that is an historically understandable position for you.

But those atheist and pagans, along with their political bedfellows, the jihadist, have YOU AND I in their sights.

The beast that strode the earth and gave rise to the Nazi’s is back, in different clothes. But it is him, make no mistake.

The time for choosing to be with that beast, or against him, is upon us all, choose wisely, dear friends, choose wisely.

It is not only the Left, but allies to the New Deal among the social psychologists who have transmitted antisemitism, sometimes very subtly. Here is one example of a confidential report to FDR that accounted for Hitler’s victories over other Western leaders because of Jewish “blood.” I wrote about it here: http://clarespark.com/2009/12/13/klara-hitlers-son-and-jewish-blood/. It is true that the social psychologists in question were not practicing Christians, and that one, Henry Murray, was an unapologetic pagan.

Thank you, David, for succinctly reporting what others dare not.
Faint mitigation in the thought that history is adament: traitor Jews, like radical leftists, are the first to go to the wall when it all goes down.

I will tell you a story to help ease your concerns. As a young girl I kept very good accounts of all my encounters and failing in regards to other people.
It was my intention to present them to the Lord at the appropiate time for HIS decision. I was not always sure I was in the right of things.
So, I made little notes spiritually and placed them aside. The years went by and it was no surprise that I had aquired a little mountain of ‘items’ for discussion.

One day the Lord was walking by and He simply looked at my pile of items. Guess what happened? One look, just a look and the pile was demolished into nothingness.
That really blew me away. I was so surprised.

Today the Lord is walking upon the earth. There is nothing happening, big or small, that He does not notice.
And all He need do, is to give it just one look. That’s something to think about.

“It is time for Jews to wake up and smell the viscid stench of bigotry and hatred that has begun to fill the air”.

How about it’s time for the institutions of Christianity, nazism, and Islam, not to mention the British government, the Eu etc to face upto their own inadequacies and problems and stop blaming the Jews for their own psychological garbage??
A vain idea, I know, but that’s what needs to happen.
Anti Semitism is unfortunately a psychopathy that Jews cannot cure.

And let’s not forget that much of the hatred in the Eu, for instance, is none that the EU itself agreed to institute with the EuroArab Dialogue – in other words, a deliberate agreement to betray Israel and adopt the Arab moindset for what?? Cheap oil and Arab Markets!!

The UK, in its adoption of Muslims to overthrow their right-wing, never learned their lesson during the Palestine Mandate – that trying to work with Islamic gangsters is a dead end.

As for the Christian insititutions, they have never forgiven the Jews for being the first religion before them – hence their hatred of it.

Deploying the phrase “Christian institutions” uses way too broad a brush rhetorically, and is strategically very sloppy as an attempt to define the boundaries of the problem.

As was pointed out in another comment, evangelical Christians are some of the staunchest supporters of Israel and the Jewish people to be found today. Evangelicals don’t do this out of fuzzy sentiment but because of a very firm conviction that God’s words in Genesis 12:3 still apply and will forever apply. (There are other Biblical verses that go into evangelicals’ reasoning on this issue, but Gen. 12:3 is a biggie.)

Insofar as the phrase “Christian institutions” overlaps with “mainline Protestant churches,” and insofar as the latter have been overtaken by leftists — and believe me, NO ONE is more cognizant of that than evangelicals — then, yes, by those boundaries and definitions “Christian institutions” can be said to be culpable. But one could also argue that not all “Christian institutions” are mainline … quite a few are now evangelical. Focus on the Family, anyone?

In times of serious threat, it is absolutely critical for a person or people to be able to discern accurately between friend and foe. Ability or failure to to so can quite literally mean the difference between life and death, between survival and extinction. To say that all the “psychological garbage” is on the non-Jewish side is just as innacurate as to say that it is all on the Jewish side. Anti-Semitism is a vile and frequently deadly attitude. And to the extent that distrust of and hostility towards Christians (however historically based and understandable) exists in the minds and hearts of contemporary Jews, then, yes, that is a problem for Jews because it weighs directly on their safety and survival, for all the reasons spelled out above.

Or are we supposed to conclude that people like Dennis Prager and Rabbi Daniel Lapin are the ultimate fools and dupes because they *do* trust a number of Christians and have spoken about the necessity of common cause between devout Jews and devout Christians?

It would be both tragic and ironic should those decrying prejudice be themselves some of the most stubborn harborers of prejudice.

As for the Christian insititutions, they have never forgiven the Jews for being the first religion before them – hence their hatred of it.

Sorry, but this is just silly. The two big historical accusations in Christians’ attitudes towards Jews were “Christ killers” and “usurers.” I won’t bother to go into all the reasons why I find both accusations erroneous and venomous, but suffice it to say that neither one has anything to do with “you were here first” envy. If this is what you believe to be behind historical (or even current) Christian anti-Semitism, then you really, really don’t get it.

I’d like to add that not only does she NOT get it, but she lacks the root cause of antisemitism that has deep historical roots in Europe.

The first level of distrust goes back to the era of the Black Plague. As Bubonic plague was destroying cities, towns, and villages one group seemed to be somehow, miraculously immune.

The Black Death seemed to leave the Jewish enclaves alone for the most part. This caused people of the time to feel that Jews were somehow responsible for this epidemic. (Not unlike the Gay Community blaming the Hetrosexuals for AIDS)

Now then, the explaination for the Plague’s discrimination is really quite simple. Kosher Laws in the Jewish Community worked to keep the plague away from people who followed them. Fancy That.

The second bone of contention came with the 20th Century. In earlier days the Jews were not permitted to own property in much of Europe. So Jewish families would ammass holdings of Gold instead of property. With the emergence of Banking throughout Europe in the 20th century Jewish Families had an abundance of the one thing that could create a Bank in a Hurry… Gold.

These Instant Bankers, where others struggled to get started, created much distrust that was simply reinforced by the historical distrust born during the Black Death.
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As for this First Envy nonsense, that’s like saying a child hates their parents for being here first. Blather.

Joseph and Mary were Jewish.
Jesus was Jewish.
Give me a break please.

Friend, before i wrote my response to the above comment, i should of read yours….then i could of just signed my name ans said DITTO….wish i could write like most of you good people….By the way, we Christians love Mr. Praeger, and a lot more influencial Jews know who there true friends are,Hello Ben Netanyahu…We love Bibe as much as You do…..Bless all of G0ds people

Please…..How can you say such things about Christianity….You are so wrong….What Christian Inst. cares a whit who had the first or oldest ”Religion”"…The only true friend on this earth to the Jew, and to Israel is the true Christian….We are grafted into the same vine as G0d`s Chosen…we are very thankful that our L0rd and Savior, Jesus Christ was rejected by the Chosen of G0d, else we would of never had the offer of salvation presented to us Gentiles….Please note, the world is not made up of Jews and Christians….Jews and Gentiles, or Heathern….We became one of the Chosen thru adoption….Salvation was offered to the House of Israel, first then to the Gentile, when it was rejected…..Your callus paint brush stroke really hurts a lot of us true Christians, that love the same G0d that you cling to, and our L0rd Jesus….thank you, Jimi

I remember vividly the first time I realized that anti-Semitism was making a comeback after being shamed into the shadows by the Holocaust.

I was a dinner party with a leading NY intellectual, an American blue-blood, who startled me with comments about “Palestians” and “the Zionists.” That was the first time it hit me–anti-Semitism was coming back through the Left, supposed champions of tolerance and justice, and the Trojan Horse for its return was the Palestinian cause.

This was way back in the early 80s. Then Edward Said was lifted up on the shoulders of the Columbia faculty and a strange and unholy alliance was formed between Jew-hating Arabists and Jewish intellectuals. Ironically the very state that had been created by embarrassed Western powers after WWII to protect the Jews was being used to revive the world’s oldest hatred.

Across the street from me is a Jewish gentleman, an academic. He is a die-hard Leftist.

I tend to wear around an old Army hat. Having seen me do so, this person makes a point to wear either a brilliant red Che T-shirt, or an equally garish USSR shirt, replete with golden hammer-and-sickle. He will quite literally see me wearing said hat while working outside, and he will deliberately go inside his home, and return wearing one of the two shirts, and then parade around doing “yard work” so I can see him. He even glares at me for daring to wear such an “evil, militaristic” item of clothing (seriously, I have heard people here refer to it as such).

He doesn’t even get it. He is marching around, wearing images of the very people who would, given the opportunity, put him against a wall and shoot him dead. They wouldn’t care if he’s an academic, or far to the left, or a “Fellow Traveler.” They would terminate him for being a Jew.

Agreed, but most Jews aren’t so deranged. I hope you don’t generalize about Jews based on this one individual, although I admit it would be tempting. I assure you, a great many Jews are thankful for the American military. Dennis Prager is one example.

Certainly not. I grew up around here, half the population is Jewish (I am not). We all seem to get along just fine.

However, the area has been increasingly populated by Jewish Academics who work at the colleges nearby, and this sort of thing seems to be a direct function of that. If a generalization that be, well, there it is.

Typical self-serving gunk: I never heard any anti-Semitism where I grew up or felt it at Hopkins, though some Jews were prejudiced against western WASPs.

First, claiming divine afflatus makes no friends, and is ad hominem at its core. There are a lot of people who have nothing going for them except being Jews. I personally don’t think my friends feel that way.

Second, a lot of Jews turned on the heritage because of its racism. Experience taught better, and they didn’t want much to do with it.

Third, you can’t run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. Claiming to just be citizens then using the group for protection is not good. People remember that Madoff and the ortho baby rapers were more or less left alone because they were Jews and that fact wins no friends.

Fourth Jews got special treatment after WWII while the locals were excoriated. Europe no longer is a good place: get used to it. Further, according to Gen. Truscott, the Jews tended to bite that hand that fed them.

Fifth the age of persecution is past the age of genocide is here. No minorities will be able to exist as a people in the modern state, claiming rights of citizenship, while demanding special treatment for the group.

Sixth, the arguments wax too biblical for my taste, making the enemies a disembodied evil. People act based on their situations but all Solly offers is judgmental pap.

Finally, Israel is doomed by its own political culture, a codependency that would rather sacrifice its own people for its ideals than protect them. Without Judea and Samaria, even great power guarantees would be useless. Israel simply has no credibility with its enemies, even to the point of them doubting the risk of nuclear retaliation.

You never saw anti-semitism, therefore its not a problem. Quite the reverse, you say, Jews were prejudiced.

What are your sources for saying Jews turned on their heritage because of its racism? Is it not more likely some turned on it to escape the racism of the non-Jewish world?

Madoff, ‘ortho baby rapers’? WTF? Criminality among Jews is per capita lower than for any other ethnic group, based on prison population. Why are you trying to tar a group with crimes of its deviants?

Jews got special treatment after WW2? How so? They were given extra rations when they were liberated as walking skeletons from death camps? One guy says “Jews bit the hand that fed them”, and that’s good enough for you? Shame on you.

Too biblical for your taste? Too bad. These are issues of biblical proportions.

Your last paragraph is the only one that has any merit, but it is not enough to save your post, which is execrable.

“Jews turned on the heritage because of its racism”
“ortho baby rapers”
“Jews got special treatment after WWII while the locals were excoriated”
“No minorities will be able to exist as a people in the modern state”
“Israel is doomed by its own political culture”

Sounds like the Jews, Israel, and Judaism must be destroyed by anyone who favors civilization, decency, and the continuation of our Utopian world.

The point about “No minorities will be able to exist as a people in the modern state” gives Denver Bob away. This sentiment emanates directly from Marxist-Leninist doctrine. He should have been more careful in disguising his memes. Will you be making the world right at the point of a rifle, Mr. Bob, as Mr. Lenin believed was necessary?

Please don’t be so unthinkingly hard on Bob.
He merely throws out a bunch of stray thoughts, observations by one person, and some questions. I must say that the responses are interesting. He nowhere calls for the extermination of Jews, or even their persecution. He is making some personal observations and is offering a little unsolicited advice. I say the responses are interesting because one accuses him of wanting all Jews dead, one insults him by charging him with a mental illness, and the other refutes his points by simply denying them.
Interesting.
There is no more ardent supporter of Israel and the Jewish people than I. Their forbearance as a nation regarding their continual threat and attack from the Arab world is a sure sign of their greatness. I have spent much of my life in a business which has a very large, important Jewish component, and I’ve lived my life on Long Island. The issue of anti-semitism, of every degree and every stripe, has surrounded me for 50 years. There are many aspects of it that still puzzle me, but one question I would like answered for me, first and foremost:
Why do Jews think they are hated so? Why have they been hated from Abraham’s time to today? Just what is it that causes this horror to continue for millennia, across all of Europe, and now, all over the world? I know what the hating idiots say. At this point that no longer interests me. The ravings of idiotic Leftists and the other grown up children are of no weight, so respond to no argument. Still, their ravings contain much danger, even if they are without merit. But what do Jews say the reason is, when alone, in their heart of hearts? I think the answer would be instructive. Perhaps from this we can discern the kernel of truth from which the tree of poison spreads.
Bob has put forth some of the points that have been floating around forever. Some are easily dismissed, yet all of them, and many more points which I’m sure we don’t really need to reiterate here are held as to some degree true by a great proportion of the world’s population. That does not make them correct. Also, the fact that they are true in a single instance doesn’t make them true in general, yet they are believed to the point that people are willing to kill and die for those beliefs.
If you think I’m leading up to an answer, I’m not. I’d really like to know. But when all three responses ahead of mine do not discuss, but instead argue, communication becomes impossible, and resolution, a forlorn hope.

“But what do Jews say the reason is, when alone, in their heart of hearts?”

Sounds like you’d be interested in reading a book called “Why the Jews?” by Dennis Prager, a Jew who tries to answer the question of why Jews have been hated. He provides a variety of theories.

I don’t think there’s any one specific reason, but the reasons are less important than the fact that this multifaceted hatred continues to be a threat and thereby exert an influence on how many people think and behave and what decisions they make. Solway and others are perfectly justified in providing continual reminders about the existence of the threat and the need for vigilance. Examining it is secondary to taking action to deal with it, which includes bolstering much-needed alliances and electing the right people.

John J, Your question has a lot of merit. I am not sure the Jews know why they are persecuted so. Some have commented that the issue is of “biblical proportions”, and I agree.

I think the issue is a spiritual one, and the answer is also spiritual. The hatred against Israel and the Jews, stems from God’s promises to that nation. God has an enemy, known as Satan, or Lucifer, and this being is behind the hatred of the Jews. He is headed for the Lake of Fire unless he can prove that God is a liar. Because God has made promises to Israel, it appears that Satan would like to destroy the entire nation so God would not be able to keep His promises.

If God made promises to a nation that did not exist then God would be a liar, and no better than Lucifer. The continued existence of Israel is really a miracle of magnificent proportions. It is proof that God actually is watching over these people, and though He may allow large numbers to be destroyed, He will certainly save a remnant and make them a great nation!

I think the situation is one that God actually relishes! With the whole world against His people, He will be able to show them his power! I think He is setting a trap for His enemies!

Any time you live as a conspicuous minority in a larger society, you’re vulnerable.

Any time you, as part of a minority, are more successful than people around you, it breeds resentment.

It’s a fallacy to presume that Jews are always hated wherever they go. Things go well for long periods of time, too. But eventually the forces of resentment and bigotry roll through, and if you have no physical power and small numbers, you are helpless to stop it, only to try to mitigate it.

Of course, when you tack on the prominent role that Jews play in the Christian narrative, that provides a specific filter with which to view the Jews as somehow defective and/or sinister. Note: since the Second Vatican Council’s pronouncement that Jews should no longer be viewed as collectively responsible for Jesus’ death, I predict there will be (and has already been) significantly less of this particular resentment.

I take offense to every paragraph this person wrote Even the last one…He is looking at the great scheme of things thur anti-sematic eyes, Sir, you miss the most important thing,….This is G0ds planting we are talking about, the land that was given to the ancient children of Israel, and the promises of G0d are that the land will belong to the future sons and daughters of Israel, FOR EVER….that may not be fair in your mind, but you really do not count [in the great scheme of things….Jimi

And the current occupant of our White House 2 weeks early lights all the candles at one time, and its silence of the Jews. I am a recovering Catholic, God fearing christian, even I know it’s one candle a day how blatant can the bigotary be?

Many Jews over-intellectualize anti-semitism. The ultimate self delusion is to think you can combat anti-semitism as though it is responsive to intellectual or moral argument. It isn’t. The only way to change the mind of the anti-semite is with a baseball bat. Rather than spend millions on studies and millions on outreach $10,000 worth of Louisville Sluggers and a couple of hundred tough six-footers willing to pend the night in jail will go a long way towards making the streets safe for any Jew wearing a kippah. Meir Kahane my be gone his legacy shines brighter every day.

Son of Jacob, you would be wise to leave the country while safe passage can still be assured. Things are about to get ugly, and as I’m sure you know, when things get ugly, it’s bad news for Jews. Return to Israel, where it will at least be safer. In truth, the days are coming when there will be no safety, except God Himself provides it. The hour of testing is close at hand, and human beings will become as rare as Ophir’s gold. Every nation will suffer the curse of God’s Judgment, and Israel will not be immune. More shall perish than live, but he whose Rock and Refuge is the God of Israel shall be saved. Even if he dies, he shall be raised. But woe to the man who denies the Messiah, and woe to the one who does not heed the warnings of the prophets. Whosoever persists in these shall perish in Gehenna, where “their worm will not die, nor shall their fire be extinguished.”

Misogyny surpasses anti-Semitism as a great evil in this world. In every country, muslim brutality toward and enslavement of women is accepted, and in some countries, applauded and emulated. Non-muslim treatment of women is often no better. All the so-called “feminists” in “developed” countries had better wake up, too, and fight this evil. Women are half the human race, yet are treated as subhumans by most cultures. This is beyond evil.

I don’t think I will ever understand what is behind the feminists’ act of turning a blind eye towards the way women are treated in Muslim societies. Seems to be a display of kowtowing to political correctness, but there has to be more to it than just that.

Feminists’ lockstep obeisance to “multiculturalism” must override facts on the ground, like women being beaten up, forced into wearing shrouds, deprived of property rights, even rights relative to their own children, blamed when a frisky uncle rapes them, you know the drill.

It’s one of feminism’s dirty little secrets, but really indicative of how Leftist thinking in general functions on the planet, distinctly ignorantly.

Bob, the prophet from Denver, sayeth that anti-semetism is not a problem. Hence, we should stop worrying about it. Furthermore, he states that any problems the Jews may have is their own fault, because they claim “divine afflatus”, which hurts Bob’s tender feelings.

Furthermore, none of his friends feel that way, and he never saw anything of the kind at Hopkins! So there!

Hearken to the words of Prophet Bob.

(After his next vision, he will proceed to tell us about the noble Palestinian Peoples and are friends in Pakistan, and how we really, really need to understand them, and send them more foreign aid, so they can fight the perfidious Jews.)

Menachem, because Bob, like all anti-semites, prefers blaming everything on the ever so handy Jews, rather than doing anything to improve himself, or live a full life. The first is easy, the second takes works, and self-criticism, both of which people like Bob loathe.

I recognize the anti-semitism that the author points out and find it equally repugnant. And I say that because of my Christian ethic. But, I must say, I find it hard to develop an afinity for Jews because they have aligned themselves with the collectivists and Marxists that I see destroying the greatest country ever to exist on planet earth (that is, the United States, not Israel). If the Jews are too damn stupid (with all of their stereotypical advanced educations and historical experience) to recognize the dangers of governments run amok and, rather, choose to align themselves with the likes of Hussein and his gaggle of monsters, rather than the last best hope of liberty and freedom in our world today, then how can I be expected to want these people next to me in my foxhole trying to fight the good fight? They’re actually on the wrong damn side! Wake me up when they start to vote for the good guys in large numbers.

It’s not so much that they are stupid but more of a matter of sticking to tradition. They are not accustomed to supporting the Republican Party largely due to its affiliation with the Religious Right. Perhaps more of them would reconsider if this were not the case.

except it’s not even that. The “tradition” of the GOP aligning itself with the “Religious Right” is a whopping, what, thirty years old? It dates to Reagan’s term. The political affiliation & even outright activism of some American Jews with hard-core leftism goes back way, way further than that. See Emma Goldman (et al.).

OTOH Jack Warner (Hollywood studio head, as in “Warner Bros.”) was a staunch Republican and a friendly witness before HUAC on the subject of Communist activities in Hollywood.

Well, yeah, that’s it, exactly! Duh! I can’t say that there’s been any Democrat, at any level, for any office, for the past fifty years that any true lover of freedom and liberty would have supported. Name one Democrat in all that time that wasn’t an advocate for the advance of leviathan government; just one! You can’t! And neither can anyone else. Which is why I have a problem with the overwhelmingly leftist Jewish community. Let’s see how many vote for Hussein and his gaggle of monsters this time ’round. I’d bet it will be something like 80% or more. Don’t you think so?

Had this feeling about 3 years ago. The words that come to my mind when I hear and read about more anti-semitic comments being made in the media or out on the streets is, “Never Again”, every Jewish kid knows what these words mean.

because they don’t want to hear it as it frightens them. They don’t want to admit to reality.
They might just as well stick their fingers in their ears and make a noise to drown out the unpleasant facts of life for them.

A French Jew has circulated an email detailing anti-Jewish acts of terror and vandalism in French society rarely reported in the media: “In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil — all recently. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words ‘Dirty Jew’ were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars.

That’s OK for French Society but “G0D Forbid” someone draws a cartoon … and all hell breaks loose.

There is no anti-Semite so virulent as a Jewish one. What they,the Jewish Jew haters don’t understand is that they would be the first into the gas chambers when “hunting season” is open again as it was in Europe from 1939-45.

Because, of course, the best thing to do with people like Denver Bob is let their assertions go unchallenged.

Because that’s worked so well, so far, in combatting anti-semetism.

(HINT: Bob is hopeless. However, pointing out the stupidity of his views might just convince some who are sitting on the fence. Or who have too many Bobs in their lives, and don’t know how to shut them up. But, then, I’ve never been a proponent of the “Ignore them, and they’ll go away” strategy; for one thing, it never works.)

Ignorance on display in the comment section is particularly ripe today.

Bob Denver played Maynard G. Krebs and Gilligan. Two fools, caricatures of ignorance and innocence. It seems that only the innocence has faded these days.

Jewish people didn’t “choose” the “tradition” of being excluded from country clubs, private enclaves, certain universities and other institutions of WASP high society. It was chosen for them. In those years, (I was a boy and remember vividly), Jews were shunned away from one side…and therefore had little choice. It probably began to change right around Goldwater…but by then the die was cast.

Hurt feelings do not evaporate easily.

This, of course…is an entirely separate issue from the Jew who seeks to do damage to all things Jewish. Soros, Malley, Chomsky, Zinn, and their ilk take a certain perverted pride in the destruction of all things Jewish.

The left has been on the attack for quite some time now. Jewish intelligensia must make a crossroads choice of being once again shunned by the leftist “society” or maintain dignity as a heir to Jewishness…a bond with a tiny fraction of the earth persecuted for centuries for nothing more than that genetic inheritance.

The Jew who is on the seek and destroy mission…does so out of a rage so deep, it defies linear logic.

He not only hates himself for who he is, he hates all others who share the same bloodline. He doesn’t want that bloodline to exist, because it paints him with a broad brush…and he feels that is a stain that he must remove from the world. This sickness is rampant on the left. They would rather sip wine with their eventual hangmen than to break bread with their defenders.

Understand that the “hurt feelings” crowd who won’t vote Republican are different from the Soros/Malley/Chomsky crowd. They are not the same group. Far from it.

The way to reach out to the former…is to put down the Bob Denver cretins and divorce oneself from their despicable, guttersnipe belchings.

As for the latter, they are dangerous and loathsome. Not AS Jews…but TO Jewish people everywhere. And everyone else as well.

Jews are now hurting others feelings in the State of Israel, excluding people from ownership of land, which is to be maintained under Jewish control, etc.

Ethno-Religous State for me, but not for thee.

Is that about right, Cynic?

The problem with the WASPs is that they had the power in their State, and sought to maintain that power. Which is the same problem with the Israeli Jews…excepting that its not a problem in Israel, because Jews are on top. Its not so much about “hurt feelings” as it is about tribalism. Now Jews who are culturally powerful, exclude WASPs from there clubs and inside groups and promotions, etc.

This isnt going to end well for the Jews. ie Their support for the Anti White European Christian Left is hurting WASPs feelings, and payback is going to be a bigger bitch than the current Anti White European Christian zeitgeist, via numerical strength. That is why the all in on mass immigration of ALL OTHERS to totally disempower the WASPs for good.

Liberal American Jews tend to want to support some sort of peace in Israel that gives the Palestinians a state, and they tend to be vocal critics of anything short of a so-called Two-State solution.

It’s unfair to accuse liberal Jews of being liberal in America but hawkish on Israel. They are two different groups of people. But of course, distinctions like that don’t matter when somebody’s in a hatin’ mood.

Same with the anecdote about Jews now excluding WASPs from country clubs and corridors of power. Really?? That again sounds like somebody girding themselves to spill Jewish blood in a race war more than it sounds like any kind of informed statement.

Ignorance like acting as if “Gentlemen’s Agreement” came out yesterday? This generational hangover theory that pre-determines future actions is nonsense.

Jews came out of Europe with a far heavier legacy on their plate than in America and created a new country in 3 years with no one’s help and against mountains of opposition. By your theory they would have simply sulked.

Generally speaking I regard this article and many of the comments as little short of depraved. I guess defensive ethnic and religious disdain is okay; it was forced on you. Guess what, it’s 2011 and no one is being forced to make these absurd comments about faceless and nameless people who don’t have the great native morality inherent in being Jewish.

Let’s all remember Lev Davidovich, who was close to Vladimir Ilyich and Josef Vissarionovich. He wound up in Mexico City with a big hole in his skull. This is what happens to Jews that get mixed up with the Left. Wake up, folks.

…report, first issued as a Faculty Working Paper, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The report accuses Israel of being a torture state, of not being a genuine democracy, and of not being a reliable partner of the U.S.

Is it something in the water in Cambridge Mass ?

Is everybody at Harvard nuts ?

There is something deeply flawed, malevolent, in this ongoing impulse to demonization of a people.

This is why Obama’s treatment of Israel is so repulsive. We have seen now after three years of Jew-bashing from the Obama administration that Israel, once again, is on its own, especially if Iran gets its nuclear bomb (which, at this rate, it will). But it is up to us to make sure that she does not stand alone ever again. Why? Well, even though I’m not Jewish, I certainly want Israel to survive because it’s the only true democracy in the Middle East. It’s the only country that shares our values and our form of law, and it’s the only country that has been a reliable ally to us ever since it’s creation. I also admire a people who have had to fight for everything they’ve ever had, especially since they’ve been surrounded by enemies ever since their creation. You’ve got to admire toughness like that, not that much different from the people in Texas who fought against great odds to obtain their own freedom.

But I also believe that Jews need a final place to go to if all else fails them in Europe, and it most certainly will. There is another major pogrom coming its way in Europe, only this one will be aided by the Muslims that are now flocking there by the thousands each year. The only reason I can think of why the Europeans keep appeasing the Muslims and ignoring the Jews in Europe is because I think the Europeans really agree with the radical Muslims. I think the Europeans really believe that the world would be better off without Israel and certainly without the Jews. Sure, they claim this not to be the case, but all of their actions prove this to be true, such as their unyielding support for the Palestinians and all of their claims against Israel. I am certain that, without support from the United States, Europe would have thrown Israel to the wolves a long time ago.

But now there is this “arab spring,” the biggest disaster in American and European diplomacy since probably the Suez Crisis of 1956. Only this time, an idiotic American president has literally handed most of the Middle East on a silver platter to almost every radical Islamist out there. The type of rabid anti-semitism that is going to unfold in Egypt will make what’s going on in Iran look like a picnic. And once this present administration allows Iran to actually get a nuclear weapon, we will see the final act played out in a religious confrontation that dates back centuries. Only this time, you won’t have any winners and only a lot of losers.

So what are we doing to stop all of this from happening? Not much, which is not only a shame, but a crime as well. For if you do nothing to stop someone from killing someone else, you are just as guilty as the killer. And, unless we get rid of Obama in 2012, there will be plenty of guilt to go around in this country within the next four years.

Actually Israel doesn’t share our values and law. Israel doesn’t even have a Constitution and that is because of religious conservatives who won’t allow it, so the hollering about the sharia in the Egyptian Constitution rings a little hollow. Also, since America doesn’t institutionally have Arabs as second class citizens, Israel might be compared more with Turkey than the U.S. Israeli law is not our form of law.

Israel is no more like America than is France or Germany, maybe less so.

Also there is not a problem with gender segregation in the U.S. to the extent there is in Israel. An Israeli version of American Graffiti wouldn’t look anything like ours, even in between wars and bombings.

Plus Israelis are clueless about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which is just plain weird. Plus let me know when I can marry a Jewish woman in Israel, something I can do in America without leaving the country.

Other than that stuff and a zillion other things, yes it’s a lot like America.

No, I don’t have an agenda: it’s just that plain common sense sounds like one to those who do. I’ve heard the argument that Arabs in Israel are better off than Arabs elsewhere. And the Coptic Christians in Egypt are better off than Christians in some other place. So what? Second class is second class no matter how you dress it up and put lipstick on it.

And unless the IDF is ultra-orthodox try explaining the recent cases of IDF women being snubbed at IDF gatherings.

From my reading of comparative levels of persecution, Israeli Arabs are way better off than Egypt’s population of Coptic Christians.

Arab countries treat portions of their Arab populations like second class citizens, see Shiites in Saudi Arabia, for example. As I understand it, the people now calling themselves Palestinians are generally reviled throughout the Arab world.

I’d not heard your claim about treatment of women in the IDF & would appreciate some documentation. (I looked briefly on the web & didn’t find anything supporting your claim.)

I’ve developed an admiration for Israel, especially withstanding the more or less continuous assaults from its idiotic “neighbors” throughout my lifetime.

Seems like a monumental waste of time and resources, the engendering of hatred for “the Jew”.

Imagine teaching that to little, tiny children in Gaza, particularly odious.

As for Coptic Christians in Egypt and Arabs in Israel I would say this: most of the violence directed at Copts in Egypt derives from churches being expanded without proper building permits because they are so hard to come by from the Egyptian gov’t. Salafis are all over this “illegal” activity and the gov’t too and riots happen.

Is there a parallel in Israel in terms of the bureaucracy an Arab needs to wade through to build a mosque? Certainly building permits are an ongoing issue in areas of the West Bank directly under Israeli control. Over a year ago Arutz Sheva 7 had an article about “a decision by Israel to demolish two mosques in Judea and Samaria, which have been illegally built” which is a sentence that could’ve come straight out of an Egyptian newspaper with the word churches instead. Certainly there have been calls to demolish mosques within Israel by fanatical Jewish citizens but are they the equivalent of UFO nuts?

Coptics are getting slain in Egypt, their already built churches burned to the ground, over building permits?

I just hadn’t heard it that way, Willy. I am more familiar with stories of intentional assault on Christians from Islamists. Seems to be a theme all over the world, not just in Egypt.

The ultra orthodox movement in Israel is as reprehensible to me as the Islamist ultra orthodox movement, too similar and too creepy for words. I heard a story (right or wrong) of a gang of some 70 men beating up 2 girls out at night that they considered not properly dressed in the ultra-orthodox quarter of Jerusalem.

Your Guardian story doesn’t support your original claim, although the article mentions some of the anti woman behaviors of “religious soldiers”, it doesn’t attach those behaviors to the IDF, as you implied in writing …”And unless the IDF is ultra-orthodox try explaining the recent cases of IDF women being snubbed at IDF gatherings”.

No Rob I was actually in Giza for one of these incidents and it was over the expansion of a church and proper but difficult to get permits. Ask any Coptic actually IN Egypt and they’ll tell you what I have said is true.

Please don’t expand out my arguments to cover areas of the world I am not talking about.

Perfect example of making a valid point and immediately being questioned about an agenda. Willie’s comment was about the comparison between America and Israel and you make it about Israel being the only democracy in the middle east. Pack mentality makes discussion of anything impossible.

Most people who go out of their way to be critical of Israel and Jews have an agenda.

They try to appear rational and knowledgeable as they formulate and present their cases, but it’s usually the same agenda at work, couch it as they may in pre-selected “facts”, academic treatises, versions of history, whatever.

Academia in America used to support Israel. Now the Academy has switched it around to where it’s de rigueur to be critical.

A sheep mentality. Pretty transparent.

As for Jews knocking Jews like Soros and Chomsky, there are strange forces operating inside those damaged psyches.

I agree with your statement concerning Soros and Chomsky. But look at who supports them. Supposedly learned people with enough initials behind their names to start a new alphabet. David Horowitz and Robert Spencer are two of the most vilified individuals on campuses today and look at who it is that vilifies them. The learned, left/progressives.
Cair has been able to lead the discussion against hate crimes against Muslims in this country when the facts show that over 95% of the hates crimes in the U.S. are directed at Jews. How does this happen? Why do the eggheads in the Academy not teach this?
Most people don’t go out of their way to be critical of Jews or Israel. If they have any criticism, whether it be legitimate or not, for anything, they are immediately set upon. I have a lengthy post pointing out some legitimate arguments but it stays suspended awaiting moderation so I’ll wait for it to hit before I say anything else.

Tanstaffl, how am I going out of my way compared to yourself? These are things I either already knew or ran across when Clinton just went over to the region.

It’s a long ways from the detective work right out of Sherlock Holmes to “prove” anti-Semitism which mostly consists of weak arguments, projection, cynicism and wholesale portraits of non-Jews as some weak minded other and Jews you disagree with as self-hating, useful idiot Kapos; I’d hate to have an argument of mine rest on such cheap psychology.

Racism and bigotry is not something that needs to be ferreted out and examined from 8 sides; when it’s there you’ll know it and disagreeing with Israeli policies as a supposed racist “code” just doesn’t meet this standard.

We know Hamas and their ilk and certain element among the Muslim European community dislike Jews but in terms of France for example, was this disdain for Jews among the early immigrants to France in the late 40s present then, did it arrive from N. Africa intact or not exist? Was it of long standing? Why were there Jewish enclaves in N. Africa at that time, and then not? Why didn’t Hamas and Hizbollah exist earlier in history and if like-minded groups did, why didn’t they just push Jews out of Muslim lands centuries ago?

Some context in this matter is good to introduce in order to see what is driven by events in which Muslims consider themselves as having a dog in the hunt and what is just simple hatred, driven by the anti-Semitic urban myths that are the usual suspects.

RoMo, I Googled the subject and used the first 2 references I came up with. The stories as I originally saw them were in other outlets, presumbably ones that don’t have an agenda and that you would believe since these stories are all over the net.

Israel is not perfect. As a democracy it must try and be responsive to a population with very diverse interests. An ultra orthodox jew in Jersusalem, a Beduin in the Negev, or a Tel Aviv gay student all coexist remarkably well.

In place of a constitution Israel has a set of basic laws which are safeguarded by the Supreme Court which often rules against the government. That does not discount Israel as a democracy with liberal civil rights.

Arabs are not second class citizens. They have the same rights as other Israelis. The only difference is that they are exempt from compulsory military service although they can volunteer and many do. They are represented in all branches of government.

Gender seperation is only an issue for ultra orthodox who are entitled to consideration as all other groups. Go there yourself and you will see that this is not an issue. At the Kotel where prayers are taking place, men and women are seperated. Otherwise you will not see any difference. Do not forget in politics and military Israel has been way ahead of the US on this including equality for gays.

Israel does not have a civil marriage mechanism. That is an issue I agree as do many Israelis.

No it is not America but you can get there from here. I think if you were there it would change your mind.

Willy, you can keep harping on the ways in which Israel and America differ, or you can ask yourself a question: Which country in the Middle East would have America’s back in a war?

Egypt? Syria? Lebanon? Iran? Saudi Arabia? The Palestinians?

Even if Israel didn’t exist, would any other country in that region be sympathetic to America when it really counted? Consider countries elsewhere. Do you think America has more in common with Russia? With China? With Germany? Do you sense a strong kinship between Americans and the populace of any of these countries?

I think most people in both America and Israel instinctively understand there’s a genuine alliance that exists between the two countries, and that matters a great deal more than all the Israeli shortcomings you criticize.

The 14th Amendment guaranteeing the equal protection and reestablishing the representative process was ratified July 9, 1868

The 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of color was ratified Feb. 3, 1870

After the Union troops left the southern states you saw local and state Democrats start enacting the Jim Crow Laws, poll tax and literacy requirements to keep blacks from voting. It was during this time the Democratic Party members reignited the KKK to terrorize blacks, Jews and Republicans in the mid-west and heavily in the south. When the Civil Rights Act in 1965 and the Voting Rights Act were passed a higher percentage of Republican’s voted for it then Democrats. One reason Republicans don’t understand the Liberal Jews voting for Democrats in the numbers they do.

Nothing like a thread about antisemitism to bring the worst out of people.

Yes, willie, Israel does not have a constitution, but it does have “basic laws” that require super-majority in order to be repealed. And no – Israeli Arabs are not second class citizens – they can vote and have representatives in the Knesset. An Arab Israeli currently serves in the israeli supreme court.
The “second-class citizen meme stems from the fact that most Israeli Arabs don’t serve in the military, and, therefore, don’t qualify for some privileges that come with military service. Also, their ethnicity puts them in the peculiar position of being the minority in the country while a majority in the region, not an easy place to be and a fact that challenges their loyalty sometimes.

But, of course, Israel is very different than the US. After all, the US is not surounded by enemies who wish to destroy it, still Israeli Arabs don’t spend their time in detention camps, like Japanese-Americans had to do during WWII.

Part of democracy is how scared you are to say something critical of the powers that control the government. People are not (yet) afraid in America and not at all afraid in Israel. Indeed, I would say that Israeli Arab are less afraid of being critical of Israel than Jews in America saying something critical of America. If criticism takes courage, lose two points for democracy.

There is no law at this point requiring a loyalty oath. It has, so far as I know become moot and has not been voted into law by the Knesset which would surely be challenged in Supreme court if passed. Even as proposed it would apply to all Israelis, not just arabs.

Thus far you have not brought a single solid example to support your claims.

Considering past history, the well thought out article by Mr. Solway, the fact that no one here knows you, some of us find your … um … mission a little disturbing Villy. Nothing you say makes a lot of sense although it has that undermining quality of Marxist agitprop. It’s all about creating the nagging doubts that Satan thrives on, isn’t it?

It is fundamental to New Testament Christianity that Christ was/is an Israelite, that the Israelites are God’s chosen people, and that in the Church age, New Testament Christian believers are added to the ranks of the Chosen. It is absolute that a Christian cannot be prejudiced against his fellow Chosen who happen to be Jewish. I do not – and neither does anyone else – understand the implications in full of being Chosen; and the reconciliation of all the Chosen that will come.

As God’s Chosen, the Jews are living existential reminders of God here on earth. The hatred that so many have of God is transferred upon Jews – and to a large extent in much of the world – Christians. This is the true heart of the matter; haters of God will by definition hate the Chosen. Just remember that as goes the Jews (into persecution); surely the Christians will follow.

It is extremely unfortunate that there are so many modern self-hating Jews. Underneath, they are themselves haters of God. You cannot choose both God and Marx.

A horrible duality manifests itself today; the militant Jewish anti-Christians and the so-called Christian antisemites. They are opposite sides of the same coin; each refuses to recognize the standing that the other has with God.

An excellent article. I grew up in Ottawa Canada an was exposed to this kind of hatred at an early age of 12 years old when one of my friends yelled at me “dirty Jew” as I tackled him in a game of football. I have come across guys like Bob all my life, I can’t be fooled. Menachem Ben Yakov is absolutely correct in his reply. Jews everywhere need to be aware and be prepared for what is surely comming.

Well by that standard of establishing “hate” one can only wonder how many compatriots you have in the West Bank who’ve been called “dirty Arabs,” thus establishing their own world view forever. You should start a club. Maybe chess or bicycle riding.

You seem to lack any discrimination of what is right or good and what is wrong and evil. Also, you seem to lack reason and the ability to think logically. The “dirty Jews” aren’t trying to kill us or establish a global religious theocracy. The “dirty Arabs” are.

Fortunately I have the discrimination to not take one story and say “This is the world.” That was the point of my remark about the West Bank. Justice doesn’t need to be exaggerated at the expense of non-Jews.

One word explains everything this author has so brilliantly laid out…FATWAH.

This is Islam and its “multiculturalim” mantra, it foisted off on Europe’s various legislators. Now comes their insistance on subordinating exisiting western traditional legal, legislative history (separate from religiousness) to Islamic – Sharia driven – Qu’Ran based all encompassing religiosity.

Since Judaism is a founding block upon which Christianity was built upon, Islamist’s attacks on anything Jewish makes total sense,i.e., attack and wipe out the base, the rest will crumble and fall into a useless heap. Simple and straight forward. Fatwah.

Islam claims, in europe and america, to be peaceful and all inclusive. One merely has to attend a mosque, community affair at a mosque, or meet a group associated with a mosque’s Imam, immediately one is ostracized and banned from participation. If one’s idiom is Hindi, not invited. Speaks Spanish, no good.
Fatwah.

Islam may have been a peaceful religion. As practiced today, it is a recruiting call for radical religiosity crusading against a non-Islamic world, seeking to establish a Caliphate for all humanity. Fatwah.

Radical Islam and Islamist followers are responsible for concerted attacks on everything Western…Americans have to wake-up! Europeans have, and they’re finding out it’s too late. No more CAIR!

The author is clearly a Zionist supremacist. Any reasonable person understands that even though we should be extremely vigilant about racism, antisemitism should be ignored as much as possible. Only fascist Zionists would suggest equal treatment.

So when somebody is against president Obama’s policies, it would make sense to assume racism as a motivation. Especially if that person is of a different political persuasion.

But if somebody expresses their understanding of the Palestinian need to bomb Israeli cities, it would be shocking to suggest this enlightened opinion could originate in anti-semitism.

Apart from a couple of kids in the schoolyard or an a-hole in business, anti-Jewish thoughts and feelings (such as there are) in the US are primarily based in the perception that individuals of wealth and influence, those who seem bent against the traditional American nation, are much overrepresented by Jews. If you are an activist on the Right, this is an unfortunate fact in your work. It doesn’t turn you into a bigot (necessarily), but complaints about those engendered perceptions seem conceited.

I something funny the other day: we all love Jews…as long as they are in Israel. Many of the comments on this post seem to bear that out! Lauding the conservative Israelis, condemning the (relatively) liberal American Jews. But a great discourse here.

I am aware of the danger, but you lost me with the notion that the Book of Esther is about refusing to assimilate. To me, it’s about Esther’s and her family’s willingness to maintain family ties, despite her admittedly unwilling assimilation by the host country.

There is also the Book of Ruth, which is about a Jew who married outside the tribe, and after he died, his widow took good care of his mother, and eventually became part of another Jewish family.

But the Jews of Europe did not maintain their family ties when their children married out of the tribe. They disowned them, and sat shiva for them, pretending they were dead. So, there was nobody to stand up for them when things first turned ugly, when just a few voices might have averted the rise of the Nazis, perhaps by ridiculing them into oblivion as we have done the Ku Klux Klan.

In the United States, we have many families with ties outside Judaism, and they are your safety net. Your Esthers and your Ruths, who will notice and will speak up for you, maybe even before you know you need them.

As a thoughtful Jew, I mourn the loss of Esther’s children to the tribe even in the face of her bravery. I also celebrate Ruth’s selflessness in becoming Jewish. However, the act of conversion always entails personal restrictions on behavioral options, because that is what Judaism is. Is a behavior permitted or not? A question to be answered by learning and asking questions, not political thought police, virtue squads, or media pundits.

is openly sold on Amazon and Barnes & Noble when “a book of equivalent hatred (for any other group)” would surely be proscribed or quickly removed from the shelves?” – Solway

Apparenty youve missed the plethora of hate screeds targeting White European Christian Males published by Ethnic and Women’s Studies department grads, that are sold on Amazon and B&N.

It seems that Jews are no longer accorded special protections its now starting to become open season on them as well. But then again, many Jews had no problems with the hate screeds of Leftists before….so its not a general priciple. It never was, and it never is. No matter how many Leftists, self proclaimed “Anti Racists” and “Anti Sexists” continue prancing around under the delusion that they are in fact what they proclaim to be.

An interesting comment about “special protection” as the view from the Left seems confused as to whether endow Jews with victimization status or imperialist, colonialist status due to Israel. Needless to say I think Jews have been kicked out of the Leftist club in this regard and, like those white Christian males, only are liked by the Left when they keep their heads down as if in acknowledging some kind of endemic guilt.

As for hate speech lite, don’t forget the many black culture websites like TheGrio and The Root which are to the KKK what Maxim is to XXX porn.

I found this paragraph to be good advice for White European Christians as well.

Appeasement of haters that represent the mainstream minority groups political representation is a failed strategy, no amount of special consideration or privelege will satisfy them. They must take the initiative and establish pro-active identity politics organizations to promote their well being and interests, cease funding universities where Leftist radical professors indoctrinate and educate the enemies of White Euro Christians and instill hatred for them in future generations, and defund government diversity promotion and mass immigration of “Others” which the purpose of is to disempower WEC’s in their own countries. In other words, quit arming your enemies. Unfortunately, the majority of American Jews fall into the category of enemy of White Euro Christians.

Spot on. See Nativity displays and the uttering of “Christmas.” “No can do,” they say. And you agree. “It’s for the good of us all,” they say. Right. The collective good, comrades. The workers’ paradise, where the individual is dead.

As for the Christian insititutions, they have never forgiven the Jews for being the first religion before them – hence their hatred of it.

I’m sorry but this has to be the most ridiculous statement I have ever read in the comment section at PJM. Several replies did a very good job of refuting this but I’m going to add to them. The Conservative Evangelicals in the U.S. strongly back Israel and the Jews. In the past few years many Protestant denominations have drifted to the Left/Liberal/Progressive side and it has caused rifts in every Protestant Denomination. The practices of now allowing female clergy, practicing non-celibate gay pastors and priests and the most vile (in my opinion), the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) Campaign have caused divisions and breaks between churches and national associations. The Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches are all fighting this as we write. Conservative Evangelicals have a strong foundation of their faith based on the Old Testament and continue the tradition of supporting Jews and Israel with their strong belief in the Gospels and New Testament, even though some Jews commenting on this page and others have said that the New Testament is nothing but fairy tales and made up stories.
The Rev. Hagee crowd sees support of Israel as a necessity for the end times prophecies while most Conservative Evangelicals see it as simply the right thing to do.
But some “Christians” do have legitimate complaints with Israel. Why should they support a country where the Orthodox refuse to recognize some marriages, denying some children their faith they grew up with? Why should they see their offerings of financial support go to a country that disallows their missionaries the ability to talk to Jews about conversion. It is quite ironic that now in 2011, in Israel, we Christians can not convert a Jew and yet it was a Jew, Saul (Paul) that converted us, as Gentiles.

“But some “Christians” do have legitimate complaints with Israel.” Apparently, most people have complaints about Jews. The major complaint about Jews is they are too Jewish. The Communists killed their Jews because their Jews were too Jewish. The Nazis killed their Jews because they were too Jewish (Yes, there were some Jews who supported Hitler in the beginning of his reign.). Christians killed their Jews because they were too Jewish. Muslims – in spades. Being too Jewish implies that the non-Jewish host feels imperiled by strangers. It is a question of threat. Catastrophic reaction to threat in humans is a primitive response undiluted by reason, curiosity, self-doubt, education, engagement, or tolerance. No practicing Jew would ever work for the overthrow of his host country. An example: English Jews fought German Jews in World War I, though antisemitism pervaded both cultures. Point of interest: I recently found a Jewish prayer book printed in pre-Revolution Russia that contained a prayer for he welfare of the Czar. Though it was known that the Czar was responsible for the fabrication of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, the Jews continued to pray for his welfare.

I was referring to the here and now Jerry. I personally don’t know of any Christians today, that have issues with Jews other than the two I mentioned above. Personally, I have a complaint with the hassle that messianic Jews catch from orthodox Jews. But if ya want to go there keep in mind…Saul was persecuting Christians before his conversion. He was taking his show on the road to Damascus when he saw the light. I think this happened loooong before a Jew was ever persecuted by a Christian.

The Jews’ worst enemy is now and always has been apostate Jews. Ever since they left Egypt, they have had subversives in their own ranks, and those subversives have brought calamity on them in nearly every generation. But for the apostates, their external enemies would be incapable of doing any real damage.

“. . . that evil “has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself by a thousand shapes, in order to be received.” Before you know it, you are in chains.”

This message is for everyone who keeps voting for these Big Government socialists like Obama — including the Christians. They sound like they care, but they enslave. They get you to vote for self-repression (see Nativity displays and the uttering of “Christmas”) in the name of the “collective good” (big hint here). Then, once you’ve been silenced and isolated, they demonize you, to drive you from existence. Religion, you see, is barbaric, and must be destroyed. They know. They won.

“ews must shed their complacency and take the initiative, establish pro-active organizations willing to vigorously support their cause, cease funding universities where anti-Jewish groups, a leftist professoriate, and compliant administrators multiply, acknowledge that “interfaith dialogue” with Islamic clerics is a tactical maneuver on the part of a determined antagonist, know who their real allies are and welcome their advocacy, vote intelligently in elections rather than fall back on slogans and abstractions that play to their inflated sense of “social justice,” understand that as it goes with Israel, so it will go with them — in brief, stop arming the enemy. ”

Many Jews say that’s too much time and trouble; they’d rather spend as much time as possible earning money and having fun. Spouting platitudes to the enemy is cheap and buys time; let others burden themselves instead.

They might instead donate to an organization that makes everything clear, quick, and easy. Perhaps it’s time for pro-Zionist, pro-Jewish, anti-anti-Semitic organizations to re-focus a bit.

I felt the opposite: I thought the last was brilliant and said so, this one is not something I like. It’s the ‘greater good syndrome’ that afflicts all ethnocentrists when they put that suit on. When I talk to sane, reasonable Egyptians about Israel, their eyes suddenly roll up into their head and disdain spews out. Same on the other side and every where frankly.

In defence of Solway
David Solway is a Jew who writes for Jews about Jews and their history, past and present. He is one of the few who can see the rising of anti-Semitism in the world and is not complacent. And he is edifying. (many of my brethren do not know that Herzl was a assimilationist and I heard a few saying :Dreyfus Who?)
Why this makes him an “ethnocentrist” I do not know. It is like saying that a marine-biologist writing about fish is a genericentrist because he ignores elephants.
Also, to say, if I understand you correctly, that anti-semitism is nothing more but the usual animosity that exist between some peoples, cultures or religions betrays a severe case of myopia, not seeing the additional dimension of hatred for Jews that is unique.
P.S. no reply necessary, the schism is to wide

I think you all need to remember the old saying by Sergey Dovlatov, a Russian Jew who immigrated to the US in the 1970ies – “there is only the wall to the right from us”. I think he correctly described millions of Russian Jews that left USSR and came to America. Yes, we are so right-wing, that there is only the wall to the right of us.

If you want America to be more free – try to get in more Russian Jews. Israel is already a better place because of them – remember Clinton’s attack on the Russian Jews in Israel, who are apparently the only obstacle to peace with Islamists.